Monday, June 25, 2007

The Washington Post has created a four-part must-read series on Vice President (and President of the Senate) Dick Cheney.

Part One (6/24/07): Working in the Background

"Cheney flunked out of Yale but became a highly regarded PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin -- avoiding the Vietnam War draft with five deferments along the way -- before abandoning the doctoral program and heading to Washington as a junior congressional aide."

"While lawyers fought over the 2000 Florida ballot recount, with the presidential election in the balance, Cheney was already populating a prospective Bush administration. Brian V. McCormack, then his 26-year-old personal aide, said Cheney worked three cellphones from the round kitchen table of his townhouse in McLean, "making up lists" of nominees beginning with the secretaries of state, defense and the Treasury." Anyone else think Cheney knew something about the election that we didn't?

"Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs."

Part Two (6/25/07): Wars and Interrogations

Part Three (6/26/07): Dominating Budget Decisions

Part Four (6/27/07): Environmental Policy

Article not yet released... but we can pretty much fill in the blanks on this one. Can you say Exxon?